


Bits and Pieces

by TheDarkSideofEnergon



Series: Unrelated Prompts [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, Experimental Style, Fluff, M/M, character study - sort of, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-29 07:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21406645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkSideofEnergon/pseuds/TheDarkSideofEnergon
Summary: Fifteen randomly generated words, fifteen drabbles with Knock Out and Breakdown.
Relationships: Breakdown/Knock Out
Series: Unrelated Prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1493489
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are because I’m stressed, don’t want to do more homework tonight, and needed something writing-related but non-complicated. Can all be read as one relationship (though they’re not in any particular order), or like… just individual universes. I’m going to post five at a time, so here’s the first of them.

_ **Update** _

“And you’re sure you want to keep that paint scheme?” Knock Out stared at Breakdown’s bright yellow chassis, resisting the urge to gag. It had always been a rather lurid color, but now, in the middle of their increasingly dingy apartment — the war had already taken its toll on some things — it was _abhorrent_.

“It’s functional.”

“It’s hideous.”

“It’s visible.”

“No offense, Breakdown,” Knock Out grimaced “But you’re not a construction worker any more. You’re a Wrecker. A soldier.”

“Oh.”

“It’s alright. Just trust me, lie back, and I’ll have it updated before you can say 'Knock Out was right.'”

* * *

_ **Time** _

_They_ (_the ever-present, anonymous judgers_) always said that a medical school washout and a construction worker-turned-soldier would never make it together. Time would wear them down, wear them out, turn them against each other like similarly-polarized magnets. _They_ said that _he_ was too harsh, sarcastic; _he_ was too acquiescing, too curious for his own good. But what did they know? _They_ didn’t see the soft looks, the even softer touches in dimmed-down lights.

Time hadn’t broken them, and honestly, didn’t anyone ever tell _them_ that all you have to do is flip the magnet over?

* * *

_ **Broken** _

Knock Out knelt on the bridge beside the blue construction worker, ignoring his messed-up paint. This mech had pushed Knock Out out of the way when a beam had broken free and fallen to the ground below with shouts accompanying it. Knock Out hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, and so, seemingly out of nowhere, this mech had shoved him to the side and the beam had fallen on him instead. Nothing seemed to be broken, but the mech’s optics were closed.

“Ow.” He said, finally, to the relief of bystanders, colleagues, and (surprisingly), Knock Out.

_What?_

* * *

_ **Dialogue** _

“So you’re sure that you didn’t put the wrench in the drawer by the door?”

“I told you, it wasn’t there.”

“Really, I have to do everything around here, don’t I?…It’s not here.”

“I told you!”

“Then where did you put it?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

“You may be good with a buffer, but _really_.”

“It’s so tiny!”

“So am I, and you don’t manage to misplace me.”

“I think if I did, you’d make yourself known.”

“Fragging right.”

“I love you.”

“Mmm.”

“…I left it in the berthroom.”

“Love you too, you idiot.”

* * *

** _Arrogant_ **

“Of all the arrogant, self-important…” Knock Out muttered as he stomped into his and Breakdown’s shared quarters, locking the door behind him.

“Starscream?” Breakdown wrapped his arms around Knock Out from behind, dropping a kiss to the top of his helm. Knock Out leaned back into the touch.

“Who else? Oh, Knock Out, I’ve lost my arm _again_, I’ve gone and gotten it ripped off _again_ in some explosion or another.” Knock Out mocked, pitching his voice higher in an imitation of Starscream that, if he had chosen to do so, might have fooled anyone but Soundwave.

Breakdown laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

_ **Hammer** _

“Really? You want me to replace your gun with a hammer?” Knock Out stopped his current tinkering and stared at Breakdown.

“Better for wrecking things.” He replied, leaning against the doorframe.

“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with Bulkhead, now, would it?”

Breakdown scoffed. “Hardly.”

Knock Out just hummed. “Then it really shouldn’t matter, now should it?”

Breakdown pushed off the doorframe, swaggering over, putting his hands on Knock Out’s hips and leaning down so that he was whispering right into his audial. “Please, Knock Out?”

Well, when Breakdown asked like that, who was Knock Out to say no?

* * *

** _Glasses_ **

Knock Out chewed thoughtfully on the end of his glasses as he looked over the exam study guide, tapping his claws on his desk. If he passed this exam, he’d be ready for his second year of med school. Primus-granted function, his aft — if it was really his function, why did he have to still go through school? Couldn’t they just download the information to his processor? Really, it was an inefficient—

A pebble hit his window, and Knock Out leaned back to look out.

Breakdown was standing there, grinning up at him.

Yeah, he could take a break.

* * *

_ **Banish** _

“No!” Breakdown bellowed. Knock Out’s hands trembled, but he didn’t turn around.

“My judgement is final.” Megatron rumbled. “Knock Out, you are banished for the duration of thirty vorns, effective immediately. You have one cycle to leave Cybertron.”

“Yes, my lord.” Knock Out bent his helm.

“Then I’m going with him!” Breakdown yelled, and Knock Out stiffened, as Megatron shrugged.

“Then your banishment will be the same as his.”

“Please, my lord, no. He—”

“Silence!” Megatron bellowed, as Knock Out bit his glossa. “He has spoken, and so that is how it will be.” He turned away. “Now get out.”

* * *

** _Intelligence_ **

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Breakdown asked as he trailed a hand lightly along Knock Out’s shoulder, cuddling the smaller mech to his side.

“Why would you ask that?” Knock Out wiggled so that he was lying on top of Breakdown, careful not to scratch his finish.

“Just…” Breakdown trailed off. “You’re so brilliant. You match wits with Starscream, don’t even flinch when Megatron yells, and…” He stopped.

“And?”

“You do so many amazing things in the medbay. I just feel… dumb.”

“Breakdown.” Knock Out trailed a claw down Breakdown’s faceplates, smiling. “You’re plenty intelligent — you chose me, didn’t you?”

* * *

_ **Adoption** _

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“If we don’t do it now, we never will.” Knock Out whispered. “And I came from this facility myself, so…”

“I know.” Breakdown whispered, kissing Knock Out’s fingers. “I just want to be sure _you’re_ ready for this.”

“Ready to have my life turned upside down, never get enough recharge, and be constantly chasing after a sparkling? Never.” Knock Out smiled, kissing Breakdown’s fingers too, before sliding a file across the table. “So how do these two look?”

“Two?”

“Go big or go home.”

“…Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.” Breakdown smiled softly. “They look _perfect_.”


	3. Chapter 3

_ **Fade** _

Knock Out punched Breakdown’s broken frame as it lay there in pieces on his medberth, recovered from an ill-fated assassination of Airachnid.

They’d found his spark in a cave nearby, barely lit, fading fast, but had gotten it back in time for Knock Out to put it in spark-stasis. The frame itself was starting to turn gray around the edges.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare offline on me. Not today. Not ever.” Knock Out hissed as he transformed his hands and arms into soldering gun and scalpel, stabilizing the frame itself.

Airachnid would not have him today.

* * *

_ **Agenda** _

“He means more than he’s saying.” Knock Out huffed, leaning over the dining room table as he jiggled Sideswipe on his knee, Sunstreaker on Breakdown’s hip, as he looked over the pamphlets that Breakdown had brought back for work — pamphlets with a shortened version of The Illusion of Progress.

“You think?”

Knock Out shifted Sideswipe to his other side. “There’s always an agenda.”

“For peaceful freedom, Knock Out!” Breakdown grumbled.

“Perhaps.” Knock Out shrugged, before looking down at the sparkling on his knee. “Or maybe this ends like others. Violence.” He looked up at Breakdown. “Don’t get involved.”

“I won’t.”

* * *

_ **Record** _

Soundwave stood in front of the two, mask as impassive as always.

“Soundwave: has records. Soundwave: feels those records are incorrect.”

Breakdown shifted from pede to pede, avoiding optic contact, while Knock Out cocked a hip to the side, putting a hand on it.

“Really?”

“Soundwave: does not believe you are unaffiliated with each other.” Soundwave turned back to his computer. “Records: incorrect.”

“That would require proof.” Knock Out responded. Soundwave pressed a button.

On his mask, a holocapture popped up. It was Breakdown and Knock Out, in the medbay, using the medberth… creatively.

“Well, I guess you have proof.”

* * *

** _Shape_ **

Breakdown ran hands across Knock Out’s shoulders, over the tires. “Have I ever told you how much I love your shape?”

Knock Out turned to face Breakdown, leaning against his desk. “Several times. But tell me again.”

Breakdown chuckled. “I love how everything is a soft curve, unlike your personality. It’s disarming. Who expects such a gorgeous mech to be dangerous?” He hummed, moving his hands down Knock Out’s chassis to his hips, gripping them lightly, leaning in to kiss Knock Out.

“Mmm, who indeed?” Knock Out reached forward, pulling Breakdown into him.

He could buff out the scratches later.

* * *

_ **Marriage** _

“We should get bonded.” Breakdown blurted out from across the medbay, where he was working on buffing a piece of replacement plating for a patient in the other room.

It had been a rather slow day in the medbay for a post-Autobot encounter — mostly fatalities, so it was mostly part harvesting.

Knock Out didn’t even look up from his rather delicate removal of an undamaged t-cog. “I’d kiss you right now, but I’m wrist-deep in another mech’s energon, and I doubt that would rank on either of our favorite things.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Why not? Yes.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Mirror Mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857368) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)


End file.
